Dragon's Second Chance Romance - Riley Storm Page 0,31
urgent. Something was wrong.
When he saw the Caller ID, his blood congealed with fear.
“Claire?” he said, answering it in a rush. “Is everything okay?”
“I can’t stay,” she said numbly. “Not with them. I have to leave. But I have nowhere else to go.”
He frowned. What the heck had happened in the half hour since he’d left? Were things really that bad between Claire and her parents? He’d thought their relationship rather strong. Sure, they hadn’t looked impressed when he’d walked past them, but who would be impressed to find their daughter alone in the basement with a man covered in blood?
“I can’t go to Lilly’s,” Claire continued in that same dull tone. “She’s always with Trent and is probably up on the mountain anyway.”
“You can come stay with me,” he said, giving her what he knew she was looking for but was too ashamed to ask. “That’s not a problem.”
“Up the mountain?” Claire asked uncertainly.
“That would be the safest place,” he agreed. “My place here in town is a rental. I can’t be sure of the strength of the threshold there.”
Claire was quiet for a moment, digesting that. “I don’t really want to leave town though,” she said after a moment.
“Oh,” he said, trying to think of a way to convince her without getting too pushy.
“Besides, that might violate the terms of my bail.”
Pietro straightened. “I hadn’t thought of that part,” he admitted. “We definitely don’t want to break any of those rules, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah,” Claire sighed heavily. “I know. I’m going to treat this thing properly. Do my time, however long that ends up being. I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot.”
“Good,” he said, perhaps a bit too strongly. “I don’t want you too either.”
If she did that, then Claire would be gone from him for longer. That too was something Pietro did not want, though he didn’t say anything about it. Now was not the time to burden Claire with more worries. She had enough on her plate without him adding to it. So he would keep quiet, refraining from telling her his thoughts.
Not to mention the need for her to avoid jail due to its lack of security. She would be an easy target for the vamps in there, unprotected by anyone prepared to deal with the Hunters.
“When do you need to be out by?” he asked when Claire didn’t speak up again.
It would take him only a few minutes to cover the distance back to her place. He had no vehicle at the moment, but he still wanted to be with Claire, both to protect her, but also to comfort her.
He suspected she would be needing it. A lot had happened to her tonight. She would need his support, his strength, and most of all, he believed, his presence. Whether she knew it or not was a different matter, but he intended to offer her whatever she could need to get through.
“I’m already gone,” Claire said flatly.
Pietro stiffened. “Where are you?” he asked, trying to keep the worry out of his voice.
They’d been talking on the phone this entire time, and Claire had been out of the house? The vampires could snatch her at any time! She clearly wasn’t thinking straight, her emotions frayed and ragged after the argument with her parents. Otherwise, she never would have done something like this.
“Sitting in the parking lot of Peaks Pub,” she said dully, naming one of the other bars in town, one that wasn’t frequented by dragons.
It wasn’t far from his location, and Pietro had already pivoted and headed off in a new direction. This time, he quickly checked behind him before crossing the street, his senses now on full alert.
“I can be there shortly,” he told her. “Just hang tight and stay on the phone until I get there, okay?”
He adjusted the phone to take a better grip on it and started jogging, his pace quickly reaching a near flat out sprint for a human.
“Yeah,” Claire said with a heavy sigh. “I’m not going anywhere, I guess.”
Pietro wanted to chide her for leaving the house unprotected, for not calling him first, but he bit back his words. Claire was broken. Her mind not thinking straight. The fight with her parents must have turned ugly. He wished, not for the first time, that he’d been there to help her out, but that hadn’t been what Claire wanted.
Maybe she was kicked out, instead of choosing to leave? That would explain a lot…
Neither of them spoke